Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer

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You know it's the silly season when the police put out a news
alert headlined "Explosion in toilet block - Bondi" and nearly get
crushed in the media rush.

"Everyone was trying to suggest al-Qaeda was making an attack to
make a story," said Bondi police commander Mark Walton on Thursday
after closing the case of the exploding dunny. Police concluded the
explosion, which gave a swimmer showering 10 metres away a heck of
a shock and some cuts from shattered glass, was fireworks not
terrorism.

Apart from that minor incident it's been all quiet on the Bondi
front with the patchy weather making for a much quieter
Christmas/New Year period than previous years.

But the crowds were out in force this week basking in
consecutive days of solid sunshine.

With plain-clothes police scouting the beach for bagsnatchers
and other offenders, one thing that isn't troubling Walton too
much, nor for that matter the rest of the NSW force, is patrolling
for phone camera offenders.

"I think we have got enough to do without being mobile phone
police as well," a NSW Police spokesman said.

We asked about it in light of last year's prosecution of a
Sydney man, Peter Mackenzie, for offensive behaviour after he was
nabbed taking photos of topless women with his mobile phone. This
crime came to mind after observing two young chaps snap without
permission a male sunbaking at Bondi in a skimpy green thong.

While the North Bondi crowd are used to extroverted sunbathers
parading their pumped, preened and tanned bodies (and that's just
the blokes), this fellow, who looked too old to be a baby boomer
but metrosexual enough for back waxing, created quite a stir down
at the family end of the beach.

People gawped and laughed as he headed into the surf in a cossie
that looked like it had come straight out of the International Male
catalogue.

Unbeknown to Mr Thong, when he emerged from the water two
boardshort-wearing lads tailed him down the beach taking shots of
his smooth behind. The happy snappers returned to their beach
towels and with howls of laughter SMSed the shots to all their
mates.

Walton thought that when it came to gratification "where
something's funny and where it's offensive is open to
interpretation".

He thinks it's early days on phone cameras and offensive
behaviour and would like to see the law tested in a higher
court.

"I'm no lawyer but it's been said to me before that no one owns
their public image," he said.

Walton said taken to its extreme a news photographer taking a
general beach shot (just like the one shown here of sunlovers on
the sand on New Year's Day) could be in trouble.

New leaf for Clover

With virtually every day a drama since she became Lord Mayor,
Clover Moore seems well equipped for the thespian role she has
agreed to take on next month.

She is teaming up with 15 other prominent women from around
town, including the actor Leah Purcell and the crime writer Tara
Moss, for a charity performance of The Vagina
Monologues.

Moore joins a long line of celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey,
Glenn Close and Winona Ryder, who have taken part in annual charity
performances set up by the writer of the Monologues, Eve
Ensler, as a global fundraiser called V-Day.

V-Day's original goal was to eradicate violence against women
and girls by this year, but Ensler has revised her aims.

Moore was out of town for a few days resting up between a hectic
New Year's Eve party - where every second person seemed to want a
photo opportunity, including her husband Peter, her daughter Sophie
and friend Chanel Bergman - and a round of festival-related
engagements starting tonight. Bergman has her own monologue, told
to Women's Day 15 months ago, about spending $75,000 to
become a woman.

Moore's spokesman, Jeff Lewis, was unsure if the Lord Mayor had
any acting experience. Still, if the theatre of politics wasn't
enough training there was always the theatre of the classroom for
the former schoolteacher.

Black day for bankers

Sydney Festival organisers will be requiring health checks
before they sign up the act that Macquarie Bank backs next
year.

The investment bank is sponsoring The Black Rider which
kicks off the festival tonight minus its main drawcard, Marianne
Faithfull, who withdrew because of exhaustion.

Two years ago Mac Bank sponsored Cuban jazz pianist Chucho
Valdes, who pulled out at the last minute because of ill health,
forcing festival organisers to refund tickets.

None of the Macbankers who chose The Black Rider had seen
the show when they signed up for the bank's $100,000 sponsorship.
But if the dark fable about doing a deal with the devil doesn't
resonate with the suits, some of the lines from William Burroughs's
libretto might hit the spot: That's the way the pan flashes
That's the way the market crashes That's the way the whip
lashes.

Not that the outfit known as the Millionaires Factory is
anticipating any pan flashing, market crashing or whiplashing as it
looks set to clock up its best year ever.

But there was some teeth gnashing outside the bank last month
when details of a new perk called the "Cafe Benefit Card" leaked
out.

The card enables the already well-paid Macbankers to buy food
and drinks at an inhouse cafe using pre-tax income. Someone earning
$100,000 who spent $30 a week on the card would save a net $808 a
year.

Matthew Russell, a spokesman for the bank, which prides itself
on its culture of integrity and striving for profit, said Macquarie
was "always looking at ways of improving benefits to staff".

Melburnians get the Bill

A big Melbourne contingent led by restaurateur Ronnie di Stasio
hit Sydney for last night's crowded opening of the Bill Henson
exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Di Stasio, a collector of Henson's dark and edgy photographs,
has lent a stunning piece of a floating girl that normally hangs in
his St Kilda restaurant Cafe di Stasio.

The Italian-Australian, who is legendary for his love-hate
relationship with diners, said he collected local contemporary art
for years before deciding in 1997 to concentrate on one artist. He
weighed up three and Henson won out over Howard Arkley and Juan
Davila. The Melbourne-based artist then spent a year working with
di Stasio selecting pieces for the gallery on his Yarra Valley
property.

"It was a pretty daring move to put one artist in there," di
Stasio said, waxing lyrical about Henson and the works AGNSW's
director Edmund Capon says are "a celebration of the amoral".

"Not you, but your work," Capon added, after Henson said the
best art "seemed almost amoral" in a talk he gave on Wednesday
about the gallery's new Cy Twombly acquisition.

Thais clean up for Downer

Alexander Downer might have flown into Phuket this week to see
the disaster zone first-hand but that didn't stop the locals trying
to put on their best face for the visiting dignitary.

About half an hour before Downer was due to visit Patong beach
in Phuket hordes of military hit the area with brooms and
bulldozers commencing a clean-up operation that had otherwise been
ignored.

The Foreign Minister observed the clean-up, which was captured
on film by the news crews travelling with him. Reporters who stayed
on afterwards were surprised to see the cleaning stopped within 15
minutes of Downer's departure.

It was the same story at City Hall in Phuket City where tables
of food, fruit and water that had been set up for those in need
were cleared away so that the area looked a bit more spick-and-span
for Downer.

The zebra strides again

Updating previous columns: the zebra head under the gun in Point
Piper has won a reprieve, and Emily is once again crowning the Art
Wall building in Kings Cross.

After what we hear was an animated meeting, owners of apartments
in Point Piper House voted "by a whisker" against a motion to force
penthouse owner Emmanuel Margolin to remove the zebra head that
adorned his balcony. One participant later suggested the trophy
could become a tourist attraction.

And, on Thursday, true to his word, architect Dale Jones-Evans
replaced the underpants ad on top of his quirky building with the
digital print of an artwork by Emily Kame Kngwarreye that helped
win its architectural accolades. The art is minus the corporate
sponsor that developer Linda Gregoriou had in mind as a way of
generating revenue off the artbox.